Behind the Black Door: Tales from 51X

USA 51X 1984 exhibition featured installations by David Wojnarowicz, Futura 2000, Judy Rifka and Rich Colicchio. Each artist was given their own area in the gallery using USA as the theme David painted a portrait of Ronald Reagen on glass and was the center point for his installation. After the exhibit ended the Reagan piece as usually was hung in the backroom of 51X until picked up. During the 51X years my girlfriend was Cindy, a eurasian, whose parents lived in the building. Her mother was Chinese and her father Russian, not a good mix to have I guess. Cindy...

On June 18,1982 Zephyr opened the first one man show at 51X gallery. It set the stage for the style of exhibition 51X would become known for. Zephyr himself and the show were an enormous influence on me. He changed the way I thought a gallery exhibit should look.  Before the show and planning to start the work, Zeph said to my partner Ed Kurpell that he wished I would go to New Jersey for the weekend. This way he could go off and bomb the entire space. When he finished, the exhibition was installation based. Wooden panels were hung...

On March 6, 1982 51X officially opened it's gallery doors to the public with the inaugural exhibition. The "Opening Night" group show were artists Futura 2000, Dondi, Fab Five Freddy, Kiely Jenkins and myself. Futura was a great help and responsible for putting together the group of artists that participated. I couldn't have done it without him. I remember when Futura said that Fred was going to join in I was ecstatic! At the time Fab Five Freddy was bigger than life to me, the real deal, a true artist and an ambassador to the arts. He was very influential...

I had become good friends with FUTURA and Gerb  1981. They both always welcomed me with open arms keeping me up on the current events  and happenings.  At the time Futura started preparing for his one man show at the Fun Gallery. Gerb was out of town and he planned on doing the artwork right upstairs, in their apartment. That day Futura was going to work on the pieces and he invited me to come over and hangout. I arrived by early evening and  the only other person there was Jeanette’s brother. Jeanette was Futura’s girlfriend then, her name appeared...

One night I was sitting outside by myself on the stoop of 51St.Marks Place. Keith Haring happened to walk up to the building visiting Gerb and Futura. We knew each other quite well having shared a few classes together at SVA and from the East Village art scene. I told him that they weren't home at the time so he decided to sit down next to me and chat. During the conversation Keith wished he had taken the media art production classes I did to earn extra needed cash. I responded " but you are having a major one man...